The method, plainly
While building our own pages, we pulled Semrush US-database data on hundreds of keywords across New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania — the searches customers make, the searches businesses make when they shop for marketing, and the geo terms agencies fight over. The pulls ran July 16–20, 2026.
Two numbers do the work. CPC is Semrush's estimate of what advertisers pay Google for one click on a term. KD is keyword difficulty — Semrush's 0–100 estimate of how hard the term is to rank for organically. Higher is harder; under roughly 30 is winnable for a focused site.
Every agency tells you clicks are expensive. Almost none show you the numbers. Here is what the market actually costs. All figures are point-in-time estimates, not guarantees, and the whole table gets re-pulled quarterly.
What one customer click costs, by industry
These are the prices tri-state businesses pay Google to reach their own customers — per click, before anyone answers the phone.
| Keyword | Industry | CPC | Searches/mo | KD |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| personal injury lawyer nyc | Legal | $73.56 | 4,400 | — |
| car accident lawyer new york | Legal | $57.52 | 1,000 | — |
| water damage restoration philadelphia | Restoration | $32.15 | 320 | — |
| movers brooklyn | Moving | $27.17 | 1,300 | — |
| moving companies nj | Moving | $25.04 | 1,000 | — |
| roof replacement nj | Roofing | $24.93 | 390 | 14 |
| roofing contractors philadelphia | Roofing | $23.49 | 480 | — |
| emergency plumber nyc | Plumbing | $17.44 | 480 | — |
| hvac repair long island | HVAC | $14.76 | 170 | — |
| dental implants nyc | Dental | $10.45 | 1,600 | — |
| electrician newark nj | Electrical | $10.44 | 170 | — |
| divorce lawyer nj | Legal | $6.96 | 590 | — |
| assisted living nj | Senior care | $5.76 | 1,300 | — |
| personal trainer nyc | Fitness | $4.79 | 1,300 | — |
| assisted living staten island | Senior care | $3.90 | 720 | 15 |
| med spa nyc | Med spa | $3.18 | 1,300 | — |
| dentist staten island | Dental | $2.79 | 1,900 | 31 |
Source: Semrush US database, pulled July 16–20, 2026. CPC and search volumes are Semrush estimates. KD shown where pulled.
The $100 click lives in the marketing industry
What it costs to advertise marketing services — the prices agencies pay to reach you.
| Keyword | CPC | Searches/mo | KD |
|---|---|---|---|
| ppc management | $103.40 | 8,100 | — |
| ppc agency | $97.25 | 18,100 | — |
| gohighlevel expert | $83.40 | 170 | — |
| attorney seo | $61.70 | 3,600 | — |
| adwords management | $58.63 | 1,300 | 14 |
| facebook ads agency | $56.78 | 5,400 | — |
| hvac seo company | $54.61 | 1,300 | — |
| google ads agency | $54.06 | 12,100 | — |
| law firm seo | $52.79 | 9,900 | 27 |
| seo for lawyers | $49.07 | 9,900 | — |
| google ads management services | $45.11 | 2,400 | 17 |
| plumber seo | $33.06 | 2,400 | — |
| dental seo | $33.03 | 6,600 | — |
| seo for dentists | $32.00 | 5,400 | 18 |
| small business seo services | $31.97 | 6,600 | — |
| b2b seo agency | $29.94 | 4,400 | 22 |
Source: Semrush US database, pulled July 16–20, 2026. CPC and search volumes are Semrush estimates. KD shown where pulled.
The most expensive click in this entire report isn't a lawyer's. It's "ppc management" at an estimated $103.40. The industry that sells clicks pays the region's highest price for its own. "ppc agency" runs $97.25 across 18,100 monthly searches — the region's highest per-click price attached to one of the highest-volume commercial terms in this report.
Sit with what that means as a buyer. When an agency pays $97 to $103 to reach one prospect, that acquisition cost doesn't evaporate. It lands inside your retainer. We'd rather rank for these terms than rent them — the arbitrage table in part four is why.
Same service, different town, different price
The geo terms agencies fight over — and two quirks the averages hide.
| Keyword | CPC | KD |
|---|---|---|
| seo company pittsburgh | $25.08 | 28 |
| seo company nj | $21.41 | 22 |
| seo company nyc | $16.32 | 55 |
| seo company philadelphia | $15.94 | 29 |
| web design staten island | $14.99 | 7 |
| web design nj | $13.05 | 31 |
| seo company new york | $12.90 | 39 |
| seo company long island | $9.69 | 29 |
| seo company staten island | — | 4 |
Source: Semrush US database, pulled July 16–20, 2026. CPC and KD are Semrush estimates. CPC shown where pulled.
The NJ quirk: a click on "seo company nj" ($21.41) costs more than a click on "seo company nyc" ($16.32). New Jersey out-prices New York City in Google's own auction. Everyone assumes the skyline is the expensive fight; the bidding says the suburbs are. Meanwhile NYC's difficulty is 55 against NJ's 22 — the famous market is the harder rank and the cheaper click, and almost nobody prices that in.
The Staten Island finding: it is the cheapest market in the region to own. "seo company staten island" scores KD 4. "web design staten island" scores KD 7 with a $14.99 click. Those are the lowest difficulty scores we pulled anywhere in the tri-state — an entire borough of buyers with almost nobody building for it.
Expensive click, easy ranking: the table that pays for itself
Every row below is the same trade — a term where advertisers pay heavily per click while the organic ranking sits nearly undefended.
| Keyword | CPC | KD |
|---|---|---|
| adwords management | $58.63 | 14 |
| google ads management services | $45.11 | 17 |
| roofing seo | $25.53 | 13 |
| roof replacement nj | $24.93 | 14 |
| med spa seo | $20.87 | 13 |
| dermatology seo | $20.03 | 5 |
| car dealership seo | $19.71 | 12 |
| moving company seo | $16.24 | 11 |
| landscaping seo | $9.78 | 11 |
| insurance seo | $8.78 | 5 |
| home builder seo | $6.43 | 4 |
| assisted living staten island | $3.90 | 15 |
Source: Semrush US database, pulled July 16–20, 2026. CPC and KD are Semrush estimates. "assisted living staten island" carries 720 estimated monthly searches.
The arbitrage rule: when the click costs $45.11 and the ranking difficulty is 17 out of 100, ranking is the discount almost nobody takes. Ads rent the top of the page one click at a time, forever, at a price that only moves up. A ranking is built once and defended cheaply. Where this spread exists, every organic visitor is money the advertiser next to you is still paying.
The last row is the pattern outside marketing. Assisted living on Staten Island: 720 monthly searches, KD 15, $3.90 clicks. Families are searching every day and almost nobody is competing — not in the auction, not in the rankings. Every local market has rows like this. Most businesses never look.
Six findings from the July 2026 pulls
What the Semrush data we pulled in July 2026 actually says, in one list.
- The $100 click exists — in the marketing industry itself. "ppc management" costs an estimated $103.40 per click, the highest figure in our pulls, above every consumer term including NYC personal injury.
- Legal owns the priciest customer clicks in the tri-state. "personal injury lawyer nyc" at $73.56 and "car accident lawyer new york" at $57.52 top every other consumer category we measured.
- The NJ quirk: New Jersey out-prices New York City. A click on "seo company nj" ($21.41) costs more than a click on "seo company nyc" ($16.32) — while NYC is more than twice as hard to rank for (KD 55 vs. 22).
- Staten Island is the cheapest market in the region to own. Its terms scored KD 4–7 in our pulls — "seo company staten island" at KD 4, "web design staten island" at KD 7 — against KD 55 for the NYC equivalent.
- The arbitrage rule. When the click costs $45.11 and the ranking difficulty is 17 ("google ads management services"), ranking is the discount almost nobody takes. Twelve terms in our pulls fit the pattern.
- Assisted living on Staten Island is the clearest open lane we found. 720 monthly searches, KD 15, $3.90 clicks — families searching, almost nobody competing.
This report is refreshed quarterly. All figures are point-in-time Semrush estimates from US-database pulls made July 16–20, 2026 — market snapshots, not guarantees, and not predictions of any specific outcome. Next scheduled refresh: October 2026.
Legal owns the top of this table and it isn't close. One personal-injury click in NYC runs an estimated $73.56 — twenty-six times what a Staten Island dentist pays, in the same city, in the same month. The auction doesn't price the city. It prices what a customer is worth.
The second thing to notice is the floor. Even "cheap" trades — plumbing, HVAC, electrical — pay $10 to $17 per click here. A $17.44 click is billed the moment it lands, whether it ever turns into a phone call or not. That floor is why the fourth table on this page exists.